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Tuesday, March 9, 2010

In Which I Preach To The Choir

Last night's House episode was about a blogger. Of course, true to House form, she falls ill with some mysterious illness that takes his team of talented and good looking young doctors a full 58 minutes to diagnose and treat. But that isn't my point.

The episode starts with this blogger up late at night, clacking away at her keyboard, blogging to the world about a fight she had with her husband. He pokes his head around the corner and asks her when she's going to bed. They re-ignite their argument: he doesn't want her telling the world about their business. In the middle of this fight she suddenly falls ill: enter Dr. Gregory House and his team. Fast forward past commercial, and there she is in her hospital bed, blogging away about her illness, asking her readers and the internet for advice on what course of treatment she should pursue, her exasperated husband at her bedside, shaking his head. I risk a glance over to my husband: he is grinning like a Cheshire cat.

"That's totally you," he says.

He's only partially kidding. I wouldn't (I don't think) blog from my hospital bed. Mostly because I would be too busy drooling over Chase - the good looking Australian doctor with the great hair. But also because there are lines I don't cross, information that is personal and private that I don't share. I try to make my little acre on the internet less about spewing personal information and more about communing with other people. It mostly works out that way. But I know there are times he is shaking his head, wondering what on earth is so compelling to me about blogging.

Bloggers seem to get kind of a bad rap. The battle cry of the skeptics is that we're a bunch of self-absorbed isolationists who hide behind our computer screens because we can't cope in the real world. Or worse: that we're liars - we blog to project a life that isn't really ours.

And, truth be told, I was very skeptical when I started this blog. Not because I was down on bloggers, but because I couldn't imagine why anyone would want to read anything I had to say. My life just isn't that interesting. I did, I will confess, consider it to be a self-absorptive endeavor, and I guess it is. Now, however, I feel like if people don't want to read, they don't have to. Blogging helps me appreciate the smaller moments I might have missed, some poignant moment that otherwise may have gone whizzing by unnoticed.

What I didn't expect was the sense of community, the very real friendships and connections I have made. I don't consider them a replacement for real-life friendships, I would feel isolated if the only people I knew were on the other side of my keyboard. But they are real friendships nonetheless. We reach out to each other, offer support, validation, humor and relief from boredom. The internet is amazing in this regard - it brings people with shared interests together with a click of a button. In real life, it can take years to find people who share your world view and even longer to get them to talk about it.

It's true that the internet can enable you to create a persona that isn't you; you can assume any identity you want. But it's equally true that is strips down some of the posturing and pretenses that can muddy the waters in real life. Sometimes being able to conceal your identity leads to the ability to reach down and get real in a way you wouldn't with your neighbor over coffee.

Case in point: a week ago I started Crying Out Now, Voices of Addiction and Recovery. I wanted it to be a safe place for women to anonymously share their struggles and triumphs with addiction and recovery. I had no idea if it would work, but I was inspired by such amazing places as Maggie Dammit'sViolence Unsilenced, and the Booze Free Brigade started by Stefanie Wilder-Taylor and Sweet Jane. They are doing a lot of good in the world, in large part because they are providing a platform for people to open up without having to reveal who they are. Healing happens that couldn't happen in the real world. And people who understand are right there to cheer them on. The response to Crying Out Now was immediate and amazing.

There is a lot of white noise, a lot of self-indulgent blabbing that happens on the internet. But there is also a lot of good: good writing, good community, good works.

I get some funny looks from people when I talk about blogging. I get some outright condescension. Most people in my life are very supportive of my blog. They understand why it's important to me, see that it is helping me and others commune over common interests, whether it is staying sober, parenting, or just sharing insights about life. Like all things in life, it involves balance. I can see how easy it would be to slip beneath the pixilated surface of the internet and stay there forever. In lots of ways it's simpler than real life. I have to resist the siren call of the computer a lot. I look at it the same way I did about drinking: I need to be careful because if it threatens the balance in my life I'll have to give it up, and I don't want to. Let's hope I have more success with blogging than I did with drinking.

What about you, internet? Do you get a hard time from friends or family members about your blogging? Do you struggle with balance? What does blogging do for you?

I'd ask the skeptics for their opinion, but, of course they're not here.

Their loss.

***Important disclaimer in the interest of full disclosure: I'm new to this blogging business. I started this blog nine months ago, with only a vague sense of what I was going to do with it. Most of you have been at this way longer than I have, and you've likely talked this subject to death, but I want to hear from you. So please comment if you have insight or advice.

12 comments:

I feel the way you do about blogging. I started my blog to participate in a writing contest that insisted that you have one to post your serial novel in. Since then I have been struggling to figure out what else to do with it.

I enjoy your posts. Both you and Elizabeth(DaMomma) have a real gift at getting to what is important in everyday life and you are both failing honest about everything. I am glad to find some other mom's who's kids drive them nuts even though they couldn't live without them.

I am further along with the parenting thing than you. My daughter is graduating high school in 2 months, and my "Finn" is just starting middle school but I feel as if I have found a kindred spirit and that's a rare thing.

My only advice would be stay honest and don't give up. We'll firgue out this blogging thing eventually.

Well, E....I became a follower of your blog after purchasing some of your fab jewlery. That was last spring and you had less than 10 followers. You now have over 100!!! I'd say you've found a tribe or they've found you.

A well-written post! I feel similar to you on this matter: I started my blog 1) as a somewhat self-indulgent diary to make me feel good, 2) a way to keep friends and family in the loop of our lives after moving, and 3) to capture the positive transformation that our family is currently undergoing, and share it with the world. We fell subject to the economic apocalypse, and are heading out of it now. I want to bring others some semblance of hope. Friends and family have been supportive of my blogging. I have to try to not be too hard on myself! I often feel like no one really wants to read what I have to say. I often feel as if I am not a real blogger because I'm only two months into it, and others out there who've been doing it longer are much better than me. I keep going, however, and well, imagine my surprise on having 130 people coming back to read my blog last month! That has outperformed my wildest expectations!

It depends on the person... I've recently heard from one friend that it's too personal - that they feel like they're reading my diary. So she doesn't read it. But for the most part I've heard how much more people have gotten to know me through my blog, because when you have children, at the typical playdate or gathering, you don't have time to talk about the things that matter so much. Enter the blog... where I talk constantly about things that matter to me... :)It's my therapy. And I love it!

no one knows i blog. it is been my secret for over a year. i mean, my husband knows, and my best friend in another city knows, but my daily running pack has no idea. i don't want them to know. they wouldn't understand, but that is my fault, because i have cultivated real life friendships that i am not too excited about anymore.i started blogging to say the things i could never say to them.

my husband is totally into it. he loves reading about himself and scours the comments to see who is sticking up for him (or not). but he and i have a very healthy 19 year marriage under our belt, so the most i ever complain about is him refusing to rub my feet or something silly. but sometimes, when i write about my son's illness (another huge reason i started blogging), my hubby gets sad for me and thinks i am being too dark. but the feelings have to go somewhere, and that somewhere is on my blog.

I watched House last night too, and I was interested in how the blogger was portrayed. I doubt I would read someone's blog who posts from her hospital bed, immediately after hearing life-changing news. The boyfriend was spot-on when he said she wasn't doing it for the community, she was doing it for the audience.

It has always seemed to me that you are blogging for a community, not an audience, and I think your readers can see the difference.

I started blogging because I like to read blogs, and I wanted to comment on them with more than just my name. Am I a good blogger? Not really. Could I give it up tomorrow? Yeah. But I enjoy doing it all the same - for myself. The fact I have readers is a fantastic bonus.

I started my blog simply because my sister-in-law has one to keep us updated on her, my brother and their children as they move around constantly with the Air Force. I thought it would be fun to post pictures of my kids and keep in touch with family. When we started having trouble with our daughter with seizures and behavioral issues, I (very tentatively) blogged about our struggles parenting her and ultimately about her epilepsy diagnosis. It became almost like therapy for me and a reaching out for support and encouragement as I shed many tears over her. Then when our other daughter needed her second open heart surgery on top of that, I poured my heart out on the blog. Now my blog is part diary, part everyday life as a mom, part keeping family up-to-date, and part hoping I can encourage someone else struggling as a parent to children with medical issues. I do think twice before I hit "post" because I think you can overshare on the internet. I ask my husband what he thinks of my posts because he is more private, and if he disliked something, I would not post it. My family tells me they like my blog, and I have had a few acquaintances come up at school or around town and tell me they like my blog - but they have never left comments so I did not know they read it, and then I felt a bit naked! As long as I have something on my heart, I will probably still blog.

I've been blogging for 5+ years now. I started it because I wanted to prove to myself I could write. I also have a chronic disease and at that point in my life I was bordering on being disabled. The blogosphere was a great comfort during that time when I couldn't do much outside the house.

I blog anonymously because of my addiction stuff. My husband and adult kids read the blog as does one of my sisters. So do a selection of friends. When I came clean about the sex addiction some of my friends got really uncomfortable. Any time I blog about really personal stuff I run the post past my husband before I post it. And some stuff is out of bounds for the blog. I do think about going from anonymous to not but so far haven't.

I watched House last night too, and I was interested in how the blogger was portrayed. I doubt I would read someone's blog who posts from her hospital bed, immediately after hearing life-changing news. The boyfriend was spot-on when he said she wasn't doing it for the community, she was doing it for the audience.

It has always seemed to me that you are blogging for a community, not an audience, and I think your readers can see the difference.

I started blogging because I like to read blogs, and I wanted to comment on them with more than just my name. Am I a good blogger? Not really. Could I give it up tomorrow? Yeah. But I enjoy doing it all the same - for myself. The fact I have readers is a fantastic bonus.